Above Lightbox: Festival Tower, pt.3

Festival Tower, the residential condominium built atop the Lightbox centre, is almost complete. It's the final component of Reitman Square at King & John streets — a three-way partnership between the festival, the Reitman's, and Daniels.

Lightbox (the film festival's new headquarters) and Oliver & Bonacini's new restaurants (Luma, O&B Canteen) opened last summer during the film-festival.

Occupancy in Festival Tower began last fall,

• see Above Lightbox: Festival Tower for a preview of the suites;

amenity areas started to take shape this past winter,

• see Above Lightbox: Festival Tower, pt.2 for a tour of the construction.

As the building will soon be turned over to the purchasers, we're very grateful for Daniels allowing us a follow-up photo-shoot — most of the amenity spaces are now finished, so here are the snapshots!

Lobby lounge
The Fantasm, an art installation by New Brunswick sculptor Peter Powing; located in the lobby lounge, but the animated lighting easily visible from the outside sidewalk.
Tower lounge
Also has an outdoor terrace – adjacent to the rooftop patio of the Lightbox film centre.

Sports bar
The balcony overlooks the Casa Malaparte inspired roof-top of Lightbox.Cinema
Theatre has room for 66 – with the same Quinette Gallay cinema-seating, and Christie digital cinema projection used in the theatres at Lightbox.Party room
Decor for the building was handled by Mike Niven Interior Design – with furnishings from Kiosk Design.
Roof-top terrace
Fitness areas

The fitness areas are operated by Results Fitness Lifestyle – scheduled classes include pilates, yoga, spinning, and vary each month. Personal training sessions are also offered.

Spa
Spa services in the building are provided by Family Tree Health Clinic – registered massage therapists available, and osteopathic care coming soon.

Concierge
A full-time resident services director is provided by Zebrano life|style|solutions.

Festival Tower

Just like the Lightbox centre at it's base, Festival Tower was designed by KPMB and built by Daniels — and both buildings are equally impressive, in design and construction. In fact, they were recently nominated for the 2011 PUG awards – the people's choice award for architecture.

There are still a few units for sale through Baker Real Estate at the FestivalTower.com website – and rentals & re-sales can be found at http://bit.ly/FestTwrMLS.

The sequel: Cinema Tower

Daniels has already begun construction on the sequel to Festival Tower: Cinema Tower. Sales will be handled by Baker Real Estate (– the presentation centre had it's final touches just recently).

The 43 story building was designed by Kirkor Architects (– they provided KPMB with design support for Festival Tower), and the interior design is by HOK.

The UrbanToronto.ca forum has posted several snapshots of the construction site, and the Toronto Star featured Another condo blockbuster — a spotlight on Cinema Tower (May 28/2011).

The official website is CinemaTowerCondos.com — you can follow @Cinema_Tower on Twitter.

...and that's a wrap... ;-)

see you at the fest! :-)
TOfilmfest.ca
twitter.com/TOfilmfest
facebook.com/TOfilmfest
ContactUs@TOfilmfest.ca

PS.
Special thanks to everyone at Daniels who helped us make arrangements – Niall, Simona, and Jake – plus Aurora at Zebrano, for taking us on the tour! ;-)

PPS.
UPDATE: On Jun.6/2011, Toronto Star's Condos on the Market featured the Toronto's downtown west neighbourhood; locations & prices of all new residential buildings in the area are listed, including Festival Tower.

UPDATE: Site Seeing Downtown West appeared in the Aug.27/2011 Saturday Star.

Above Lightbox: Festival Tower, pt.2

Festival Tower sits atop the festival's new Lightbox centre on Reitman Square at King & John — it's the residential portion of the three-way venture between the festival (cinema/galleries/work-spaces/offices), the Reitman family (land), and Daniels (developer/builder).

Although Lightbox opened during the September 2010 film festival, occupancy in Festival Tower began later in November.

[Previous posts about the building: Lightbox developments, Lightbox tour, and Lightbox tour, part 2; also O&B Canteen, Luma, and Malaparte dining spaces.]

The Urban Toronto forum was kind enough to mention our article, Above Lightbox: Festival Tower, and they have also posted snapshots of suite interiors at Festival Tower.

Last fall, we weren't able to see any of the residential amenities — tentatively scheduled for completion this spring — but we recently took a tour of some of the common areas now under construction...

Tower entrance

Tower cinema

Tower pool/fitness room


...and some views...

East

South

West


Night


"What's On Today"

A unique feature of Festival Tower: a flat-screen displaying the day's film schedule at Lightbox (plus opening hours for the gallery, library, studio, lounge and gift shop) — conveniently located by the elevators, on the ground-floor entrance — nice! :-)

See you at the next fest!
@TOfilmfest

PS.
Want to live at Festival Tower? – check http://bit.ly/FestTwrMLS for a list of all the suites currently for sale/rent...

...or, how about living nearby the new Lightbox centre? – look for the Condos on the Market in the Toronto Star – UPDATE: the downtown west area was featured Mar.3/2011.

PPS.
CONTINUED:
Part one of this article, Above Lightbox: Festival Tower.
Part three of this article, Above Lightbox: Festival Tower, pt.3

Friday night at Lightbox MALAPARTE

Malaparte, the 6th-floor event space at Lightbox hosted its first event this past weekend! Named after the Casa Malaparte, in Jean-Luc Godard's film Contempt, it's the final addition by Oliver & Bonacini to Lightbox – after the opening of the O&B Canteen (market café; street-level), and Luma (fine-dining; upstairs, on the 2nd floor).

The interior design is by Anacleto Design (who also did Oliver & Bonacini Café Grill in Blue Mountain) — here's the original computer-rendering (above), and a photograph of the finished space (below).

The dining-space has seating for 200 people — but there's also an adjoining rooftop terrace, and outdoor amphitheatre — see our earlier article: Early peek at Lightbox MALAPARTE for images of the outside space.

Even the entrances to the washrooms are quite stylish...












We're definitely looking forward to more events at Malaparte in the spring, and during the next film festival, this summer! :-)

See you at the next fest...
#TOfilmfest

PS.
O&B Events executive chef Jamie Meireles helms Oliver & Bonacini's Malaparte at Lightbox — see booking info for rates/details.

PPS.
The Toronto Society of Architects will be celebrating architecture & design tonight by recognizing the new Lightbox centre as a 'great space in Toronto.' (Last year, the event was held at the Royal Conservatory of Music — designed by the architects of Lightbox, KPMB.)